i'm getting responses on my toot along the lines of "Why not do things [...] in the spirit of Gahndi ?"
(Literally how they spelt it)
Lemme just use a quote from Kwame Ture to show why that isn't a viable strategy for fighting against injustice in America:
“Dr. King's policy was that nonviolence would achieve the gains for black people in the United States. His major assumption was that if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That's very good. He only made one fallacious assumption: In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.”
@shel @thornyonmain and anyway isn't MLK without malcolm X just a centrist revision of how it really went
@shel MLK's shift left in the years leading up to his death is so underpublicised
@thornyonmain also like, nobody talks about how Ghandi's methods only worked in India cuz England was current being invaded and bombed by Germany so they just didn't have the resources to try and hold onto India so they cut their losses. That never would have worked otherwise.
@shel Gandhi was fighting against colonialism first and foremost ye
@thornyonmain i can't believe i misspelled Gandhi in your post making fun of someone who misspelled Gandhi
@shel @thornyonmain wasnt gandhi also open to violence as a method for political progress? he just believed that non violence would be most effective in india at the time
@thornyonmain Ah these are my favourite scholars on India's struggle for independence: people that misspell Gandhi.
I bet they have not heard names like Subhash Chandra Bose or Bhagat Singh or Aurobindo Ghosh or any of the princely states that fought the British, all of which made colonialists' life very inconvenient. India's independence did not happen because the British suddenly developed a "conscience".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_movement_for_Indian_independence
Also Gandhi was an ass sometimes, towards a lot of people.
What is the basis for the claim that MLK's "major assumption was that if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart."
Could you please share any example showing that this was MLK's major assumption from his own speeches and writings?
Thanks.
@hhardy01 I mean, it's a quote, so I implore you to do either:
1. Construct a time machine and ask Kwame Ture directly what he meant in this quote
2. Study the history of the American Civil Rights movement for any length of time
I like Kwame Ture very much. I saw him give one of the best speeches ever at a demo a long time ago.
However, I think your quote is wrong. I've participated in and read about the civil rights movement for more than 50 years, thanks for the wonderful suggestion. How about you?
It's up to you to defend your position, I take it you have nothing, or just don't care about the issue. At all?
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue… I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive tension that is necessary for growth… the purpose of direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.
--MLK
Letter from Birmingham Jail
1963
@thornyonmain I've heard it said that Dr King was successful because Malcolm X was the alternative.
@thornyonmain even just before his death MLK started questioning his approach. "Maybe we just have to admit that the day of violence is here, and maybe we just have to give up and let violence take its course. The nation won't listen to our voice - maybe it'll heed the voice of violence." this was 2 weeks before he was assassinated